JOSEPH Vs. MATHAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This revision petition has been filed against the order by the District Magistrate, Ernakulam in Criminal Miscellaneous Petition No. 2338 of 1962 ordering search and seizure of certain records from the petitioners. The respondent herein had presented a petition to the District Magistrate purporting to be one under S.49(5) of the Travancore Cochin Cooperative Societies Act through the Deputy Registrar of Cooperative Societies for issuing a search warrant to search and take possession of records and properties belonging to the Society and to hand them over to him. The learned District Magistrate accordingly ordered a search and the Sub Inspector of Police conducted a search, seized and handed over to the respondent the records.

(2.) The question for decision is whether the District Magistrate was legally justified in issuing the search warrant. S.49(5) is in the following terms:

(3.) In this case the application was neither by the managing committee of a society newly constituted or by a person appointed to manage the affairs of the society after the existing committee is dissolved by the Registrar under sub-s.(1). The respondent was only a President of the old Committee and if the new committee had taken away the records from him, his remedy, if any, is not by a petition under S.49(5). The view of the District Magistrate that he cannot go behind the authorisation of the Registrar and decide whether the application is made by a person competent to file the application under S.49(5) is wrong. It is, therefore, clear that the original order made by the District Magistrate issuing a search warrant to the Sub Inspector of Police is clearly wrong and unsustainable in law.